The Abaj had Jaibriol in a corner where two bulkheads met. They held him by the arms and kept themselves in place by hanging onto grips in the hull. So they floated with the emperor between them, waiting, like everyone else was waiting, to see what would happen when the two potentates came face-to-face. Only once before had such a meeting happened, and both rulers had died for it.
No one yet knew whether ISC or ESComm had won the war. At this moment, no one in the shuttle cared. Soz felt the question that burned in all their minds: when she and Jaibriol spoke, how would the centuries of conflict finally be given voice?
Soz floated to him, closer, and closer, until she was a meter away. She discovered she felt an overwhelming sense of disbelief. Only now did she realize just how much she had doubted she would live to see him again.
“Let him go,” she said.
The Abaj hesitated and she felt their conviction that they had misunderstood. So she said it again. “Let him go.”
She waited, watching them, until finally they released Jaibriol. As he grabbed a handhold and pulled himself closer to her, every Jagernaut in the shuttle reached for a weapon. She and Jaibriol ignored them, caught in a dance they had begun eighteen years ago on Delos, the planet of sanctuary.
They floated to each other, nudging against bulkheads to control their movement. When they met, she put her arms around his neck and he embraced her, pulling her to him. They kissed each other then, slowly rotating in the air until they bumped up against another bulkhead.
“Saints almighty,” someone whispered.
After a long, long moment, Soz and Jaibriol separated. She cupped his cheek with one palm. “My greetings, Husband.”
He watched her with the gentle expression she knew so well. For the first time in two years he spoke to her. “My greetings, Wife.”
So they came together, their union having survived through the miracle of their love.
34
Seth Rockworth stood in the entrance hall of his house, watching the youth before him. At seventeen, tall and broad in the shoulders, with a natural grace and quiet reserve, Jai Qox Skolia had stopped being a boy and become a man.
Seth knew Jai considered himself nothing special. Although the boy did well in school, his problems adapting to life away from Prism had masked the full extent of his intellect. But Seth saw. Jai had inherited both the Selei analytic brilliance and the Qox political acumen. He mixed his mother’s military genius with his father’s abiding gentleness. He had the steel-edged strength of his Ruby and Qox heritages, tempered with the love he had known as a child. But he was more than the sum of Skolia and Qox. Rather than the failing remnant of an inbred bloodline, he was a genetic cornucopia, hale and hearty in mind and body.
Jaibriol the Third had no idea he was a miracle.
But Seth didn’t know how to ease Jai’s pain, or the pain of the other children, who had learned of their parents’ deaths in the harshest way possible. They had all been in the living room a few days previous, Lisi and Jai playing chess, Vitar reading, del-Kelric building with blocks, and Seth watching an old movie, half-asleep. A broadcast interrupted the movie, news that came with no warning. Jaibriol Qox and Sauscony Valdoria had died in the final battle of the Radiance War. That the children had to learn it from an impersonal news broadcast convinced Seth that if fates truly existed, they had no heart.
Now Jai stood by the hall mirror, holding a holograph.
“You don’t have to do this,” Seth said.
“I can’t go unless you sign.” Jai gave him the graph.
Seth scanned it, cycling through the forms in its memory. They were straightforward, permission forms for Jai to join the Dawn Corps, a humanitarian organization formed in the wake of war. No one knew the exact situation between Eube and Skolia yet, but rumors proliferated. Some said ESComm was broken; others said it was the Ruby Dynasty. This much was clear: the galaxywide collapse of the psiberweb had destroyed communications throughout settled space, ESComm was either decimated or destroyed, and the governments of both Skolia and Eube were in chaos. Eubian slaves were pouring into Skolian and Allied worlds asking for sanctuary. People everywhere were spilling across boundaries: soldiers, merchants, pirates, scouts, even Aristos, mixing on worlds where no one knew who claimed what.
Then came the survivors of Onyx.
It started as a trickle, a few ships running fast and hard. Then they came by the thousands, limping into ports across the stars. The flow turned into tens of thousands, then millions, then tens of millions.
Then billions.
Two billion people escaped the massacre of Onyx. When history turned its critical focus on the Radiance War, none doubted certain names would rise in honor: Starjack Tahota and those who had died with her so that billions could live. And Althor Valdoria.
The survivors of Onyx made it out because ESComm knew too little about the Onyx periphery defenses to stop the evacuation. Althor Valdoria never divulged to his captors his knowledge of the Onyx defenses, at a price to himself too grim for most even to imagine. And so two billion people survived.
In the aftermath of Radiance, the Allied Worlds of Earth moved into the chaos, treading with care, still too small to reach openly for what their mammoth neighbors had lost, but strong enough to take advantage of a situation that let them increase their power base. They also stepped in to help. The military needed volunteers to organize relief efforts, relocate refugees, and carry out the million and one other details of cleaning up after a war with no clear winner. So the Dawn Corps was born.
“But why now?” Seth asked. “Can’t you give yourself more time?” Time to mourn.
Jai watched him with an unsettling intensity. “Have you read The Ascendance of Eube?”
Quietly Seth said, “Yes.”
“It was written by my grandfather’s grandfather.”
“You aren’t responsible for the sins of your fathers.”
“I’m two parts of a whole, one Skolia, the other Qox.” Jai spread his hands. “Do I believe the Skolians, that my father was a sadistic monster? The Eubians, that my mother was an obsessed dictator? The Allieds, who say both were flawed?” He watched Seth with a haunted gaze. “Or do I believe what I remember, that they were the most decent human beings I’ve ever known?”
“Believe your heart.” Seth’s voice gentled. “To raise children such as you four, they must have been remarkable.”
“I have to know they died for something,” Jai said.
Seth indicated the holograph. “How will this give you answers?”
“I need to go out there. See for myself.”
“But to leave now—” Seth shook his head. “Your sister and brothers need you.”
“No.” The voice came from behind them. Seth turned to see Lisi in the archway to the living room. At fourteen, she already showed signs of her Ruby grandmother’s striking presence. Vitar stood with her, eight now, with his mother’s eyes and hair and his father’s Highton features. Three-year-old del-Kelric hung onto Lisi, his gold hair and skin gleaming, his red eyes solemn.
“We’ve talked about it,” Lisi said. “We want him to go.” Her voice caught. “We have to know, Seth. It’s all wrong. What people say about them. It’s all wrong. Isn’t it?”
Seth longed to take away their pain. “Of course it is.”
“Will you do this for us?” Jai asked.
Seth turned to him. “Do you have a lightpen?”
Jai gave him one. And so Seth signed.
* * *
Corbal Xir walked through the empty Hall of Circles, one of the few undamaged sections of the palace. At its center, he mounted the steps to the dais. Then he sat on the Carnelian Throne.
He had never wanted to be emperor. That he had no interest in politics, that he far more preferred working out trade agreements to royal intrigue, that he felt too old now, at 132—none of that mattered to the DNA in his body.
A rustle came from the benches in the Circles. He looked to see a woman get up from one and walk toward
him, a tall figure with glittering hair. White hair. Like his. She came up the dais and sat in a chair someone had left next to the throne.
“Have they brought him in yet?” she asked.
Corbal shook his head. “The last I heard, they were at the starport.”
She looked around the Hall. “It’s yours. I don’t want it.”
“No?” He regarded Calope Muze, High Judge of the Hightons, the only other Aristo besides himself with Qox blood. “The Carnelian Throne promises great power.”
“Even more so, now.”
That surprised him. “It would seem less so to me.”
Calope turned to him. “The Ruby Pharaoh is dead. Her heir is dead. The Imperator is dead. The Allieds hold the Web Key and his wife on Earth and the rest of the Rhon on their own home world. They won’t let them go, Corbal. They’ve made that clear. And why? To ensure power for Earth, yes, but even more because they fear the war will start again if they do.” She clenched her fist on her knee. “The Ruby Dynasty is broken. After so many centuries, they’re finally broken.”
He scowled at her. “We too are broken. ISC shattered ESComm and put a spike through its brain. And you want to rejoice.”
“We won. We have a Lock and a Key.”
“So why don’t you want the Carnelian Throne?”
Calope shrugged. “I’m an old woman. I would rather spend time with my providers.”
He considered her. “I had a request from one of Empress Viquara’s providers. Her favorite, in fact. A boy named Cayson.”
Calope smiled. “I remember him. Charming.”
“He wants me to sell him to you. He says you are ‘kind.’”
She chuckled. “With such a fellow, how could one be anything but kind?”
He watched her for a long time. Finally he said, “How long has your hair been white?”
“You are rather blunt today, dear Cousin.”
He touched his own head. “I’ve the same silver mane. And I am even older than you. I am allowed blunt questions.”
Calope smiled slightly. “Ah, so. Perhaps.” She shrugged. “It’s been white since I was about ninety.”
“Ninety.” He nodded. “I was closer to 110.”
“A strange thing, genetics.” She wound a lock of her hair around her index finger. “Change the hair color of a non-Aristo to look Aristo and it changes nothing of their nature. They still aren’t Aristo. But you can’t change the nature of a Highton without changing the hair.”
A strange dance we do, Corbal thought, stepping so carefully around the truth lest we say too much and betray ourselves. “Genetics is always complicated.”
“Indeed.”
“Have you ever thought, Calope, how sobering it would be if it took a century for a Highton to learn human compassion? A frightening proposition.”
“I can think of one more frightening.”
“Yes?”
“To never learn it at all.”
“‘Kind.’” He shook his head. “My providers also use this word to describe me. Are we kind? Why? They are still slaves. I like having slaves. I like having beautiful providers kneel to me, please me, satisfy me. That girl who died with Althor Valdoria—ah, you don’t know. I would have given all my wealth to own her. I almost did. But Vitrex outbid me. I grieve for her death. Is this compassion? Or just the lust of an old man who wanted to own an incomparably beautiful girl regardless of how she felt about it?”
Calope snorted. “She would have been happier with you than Vitrex.”
“I would never have hurt her.”
Calope laid her hand on his arm. “Perhaps we should speak with more care, Cousin. Should words such as these slip to the wrong ears, it could do us great harm.”
“Ah, so.”
A chime came from the control band on his wrist. When he activated the comm, a man said, “We’re at the palace, Lord Xir. Shall we bring him to you?”
“Yes,” Corbal said. “The Hall of Circles.”
A few minutes later the great doors swung open and a unit of Razers entered, accompanied by two ESComm officers, Hightons in black uniforms with red piping on their sleeves. Their prisoner walked barefoot, his glossy hair brushing his collar, his hands locked behind his back. Corbal couldn’t see if he wore cuffs on his wrists, but a diamond collar glittered on his neck and diamond cuffs showed on his ankles. They had given him the restraints of a provider rather than a prisoner of war.
His exotic appearance pleased Corbal. The captive had violet eyes, large and dark, in a handsome face with the barest hint of freckles across the nose. His hair was the color of fine burgundy and his features classic in their lines, more refined than his brother’s square-jawed visage. Nor was he as tall or a massive as his brother or even as Corbal himself. This captive prince was about six-foot-one, broad in the shoulders and narrow at the hips.
When they reached the dais, the Razers shoved the man on his knees in front of Corbal. He stared at the ground, his head bowed, his torn shirt slipping down his arm. Corbal scowled when he saw the bruises on the man’s shoulder. His captors had obviously beaten him, a glaring violation of the Halstaad Code, which Corbal had worked so hard to set up. He would look into this, have the officers in charge removed if necessary.
Corbal spoke. “My greetings, Prince Eldrin.”
Eldrin raised his head. He spoke Highton with a heavy accent, his voice hoarse. “My honor at your presence, Your Highness.”
“I’m not actually ‘Your Highness’ yet,” Corbal said. “These things take time.”
Eldrin had no ISC background. That, combined with the chaos in the Ministry of Intelligence following Vitrex’s death, had made it almost impossible for Vitrex’s people to put together a good case for interrogating Eldrin as they had Althor. Corbal intended no stark cells for this sensuous captive. He would keep Eldrin for himself.
“You will come to Xir estate as my guest,” Corbal said. “When the Lock arrives, you will build a psiberweb for ESComm.”
Eldrin swallowed. “As your guest?”
Corbal wondered if in another hundred years, if he lived that long, he would find himself unable to own human beings. Perhaps. But not now. Right now he had no qualms at all. “Ah, well. Guest of a sort.”
The hope in Eldrin’s eyes faded. “I see.”
Watching him, Corbal knew Eube had its triumph. They had their Lock and Key. Yet for all that, he felt a loss of something valuable. He had trouble defining it. A chance for peace slipping away because Hightons knew only one way? He saw no way for Eube and Skolia to succeed at the peace table if it took centuries for one to understand, at a basic level, what motivated the other.
* * *
Seth shifted del-Kelric on his lap and turned the page of the picture book he was reading the boy. Across the room an angry cry sounded, followed by a crash. Looking up, he saw Lisi holding a plate with a sandwich. Her glass lay in pieces on the floor, a pool of water spreading across the parquetry. She stared at it, then sank to her knees crying, trying to soak up the water with her hands.
“Ai, Lisi.” Seth set del-Kelric on the couch and went to the girl. Kneeling next to her, unheeding of the water soaking into his trousers, he put his arms around her and rocked her back and forth, murmuring comfort. When a small hand touched his face, he turned to see del-Kelric. Vitar put down his book and came over as well, to hug them. They stayed that way, kneeling on the floor in the water, their arms around one another, fighting the darkness of their grief together.
Finally Lisi sat back and pushed her tear-soaked hair out of her eyes. Vitar tried to smile at her, his face just as wet. “Don’t cry, Lisi,” he said. She squeezed his hand.
“Pizza come,” del-Kelric announced.
“Oh, Kelly.” Lisi laughed, a shaky sound, but one that encouraged Seth. “What pizza?”
“We ordered it,” Vitar said.
“Pizza man at door,” del-Kelric stated. The doorbell rang.
As Seth stood up, del-Kelric ran across the room and int
o the hall. When Seth heard him activate the release on the door, he said, “Kelly, wait!” He didn’t want the boy opening the door to a stranger.
As soon as del-Kelric squealed, Seth ran to the hall. Then he stopped. No wonder del-Kelric had cried out. His brother had come home. Standing in the entrance foyer of the house, Jai had picked up his little brother and was hugging him, obviously overwhelmed, so much that it startled Seth given the older boy’s reserved personality. But then, the children had been separated for a while now, during a time when they all needed each other.
Still, something seemed off. Jai looked an inch or two shorter than normal. Seth wasn’t sure; perhaps he remembered the boy as taller than he actually was—
Then Jai lifted his head and Seth knew it wasn’t the boy he faced. It was the father.
The emperor spoke in perfect English, with a Highton accent. “My greetings, Admiral Rockworth.”
As Seth stared at him, speechless, a cry came from behind him. Vitar ran past, followed by Lisi. Both children threw themselves against their father, laughing and crying at the same time. It was like the dreams Seth had been having where their parents came back, but always he woke to know it was a false hope, one that hurt more each time he dreamed it. Except this was no dream.
A slender woman stepped out from behind Qox and gathered the children into her arms. Seth moved back then, to let the family reunite. The parents had somehow, incredibly, come home. He felt an immense, incredulous joy for the children, but sorrow too, that they were no longer his.
Finally Soz looked up at him, her face wet with tears. “You have our eternal gratitude.”
Seth managed to find his voice. “But how? We thought—the shuttle—everyone saw it explode.”
“Ah. Well.” She gave him a rueful look. “That was a bit dramatic, yes? But we wanted to leave no doubt.”
“A bit?” As an understatement, that had no equal he could think of right now.
“We’ve been trying to send a message,” Soz said. “But it’s been difficult with the webs down.”
That didn’t surprise Seth. “What will you do now?”
“Go back into exile,” Jaibriol said. “We’re going to build a community. A community of psions.”